1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, a processing method thereof, and a computer-readable storage medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Drivers that control peripheral apparatus connected to information processing apparatus, and applications that receive image data from drivers and save the image data as files are known. These drivers, applications, and the like have, for example, a function with which image data scanned by an image scanning apparatus (for example, a scanner, a multifunction printer, etc.) is transferred to and saved in an information processing apparatus.
Ordinarily, drivers and applications supporting a TWAIN (tool without an interesting name) standard are known. For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-304354 discloses a technique in which an application supporting the TWAIN standard (hereinafter, referred to as a “TWAIN application”) starts a driver supporting the TWAIN standard (hereinafter, referred to as a “TWAIN driver”), to obtain desired scanning settings and the like of peripheral apparatus. Furthermore, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-046734 discloses a technique in which a TWAIN application that has acquired image data saves the image data as an image file, and transfers the image file to another application such as email software without using TWAIN.
Ordinarily, in image scanning apparatus, in order to increase the speed of communication, scanned image data is compressed, and transmitted to an information processing apparatus. As data transfer methods of the TWAIN standard used at that time, a memory transfer method in which non-compressed image data is transferred, and a file transfer method in which data is saved as a file regardless of whether the data is in a non-compression format or in a compression format and transferred are defined.
In a TWAIN driver, in the case where compressed image data acquired from an image scanning apparatus is transferred to an application supporting the TWAIN, if the data transfer method is the file transfer method, an image file is created based on the compressed image data, and stored at a designated location in an information processing apparatus. On the other hand, if the data transfer method is the memory transfer method, the compressed image data is converted into non-compressed image data, and the data is transferred via a memory on an information processing apparatus. Accordingly, in the case of the memory transfer method, compressed image data acquired from the image scanning apparatus is converted into non-compressed image data, and, thus, if the compressed image data is configured by lossy compression, such as JPEG, deterioration of image quality occurs.
In order to avoid deterioration of image quality occurring during transfer using the memory transfer method in this manner, a TWAIN application supporting the file transfer method may be used. However, a TWAIN application that a user wants to use may not support the file transfer method. In this case, a user has to create an image file using a TWAIN application supporting a file transfer method, and transfer the image file without using a TWAIN data transfer method to the TWAIN application that the user originally wanted to use, and, thus, the usability for the user is poor.